Products such as filtration products of various types are used to filter, contain or process liquids and gases including the removal of solid, usually particulate, impurities therefrom. Filters remove unwanted solids from gases or liquids by an attraction affinity for the solids or by physically trapping the solids within the structures of the filters. Filters are used to remove all sizes of particles from removing bacteria from air going to hospital operating rooms or integrated circuit clean rooms to removing metal powder from engine oil.
Many of the solids removed, or the fluids being filtered, are considered hazardous by various governmental environmental agencies and in these cases the spent filters must be treated as hazardous waste and disposed of accordingly. This can become very expensive, in terms of out of pocket expenses for disposal containers and additional freight costs, and also terms of increased labor cost to handle extra paperwork, in addition to the higher landfill or disposal charges compared to non hazardous wastes. Normally, hazardous materials must be disposed of by incineration, either in an incinerator or in a furnace operated primarily for another purpose, but having a temperature and processing a product suitable to incinerating hazardous waste, such as cement kilns.
As an example of current practice, fibrous glass filter tubes have been used for many years to filter liquids and the spent filter cartridges very often must be treated as hazardous wastes and disposed of in a precise manner. In a common practice of disposing of spent filters the spent cartridges are placed a heavy plastic bag inside 55 gallon steel drums. When the drum is full, holding about fifty three 30 inch cartridges, the plastic is sealed at the top, a steel lid is attached and locked on with a steel latch. The filled steel drums are then banded to a pallet, three or four drums to the pallet, and picked up by a hazardous waste disposal company, but only after extensive paperwork is completed. Also, the filter cartridge user must dispose of the cardboard cartons that the filter cartridges were received in, which adds another nonproductive cost, as far as the manufacturer's products and customers are concerned and the disposal company must clean the steel drums for reuse or disposal.
Another method and product for disposing of hazardous materials is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,922 and involves expensive containers, time consuming assembly and do not address the problem of disposing of the packaging material in which the initial product was received.